Monday, February 20, 2006

history exam 1 ... meow

history 2314 - history of england 2 (1688-present). exam 1 was totally bonkers, as usual with this guy. but he gave us the question in advance, and spent a day going over what he wanted.

his comments:

83: your essay's chief strength is the frequency of sharp insights into major trends or issues. well done! in many places, thought, such as wilkes and war in america, supporting specifics and more extensive discussion would strengthen is a solid essay.

of the 51 people who took the exam, i was one of the 37% that made a b; only the a's had it better at 41%.

so i sit in class now, listening to him read one of the best essays, while the ... uh ... challenged ... kid to my left hacks up a lung (does he smoke) and stares at the grain on his desk and claps and whispers to himself about spelling errors. i really should post the recording; it's ... irritating. yeah, really mean but his vision isn't good enough to read what i'm typing from where he's sitting.

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in part after a discussion over at the rabbit lived (where my comment was apparently deemed inflammatory and deleted, but this is my blog so i can write whatever the hell i want), i took kiri my 16yo to the vet for a $250 annual exam for "old cats." i suspect diabetes, so we'll see, because the exam doesn't include any treatment, just diagnostics. it does include stuff like a cbc and chem25, fiv and felv tests, but i'm already at $300 if i want to do vaccinations (i don't, she doesn't go outside or really have any contact with the other cats -- what's she gonna catch? dust bunnies?).

re the emergency vets, there are two in my area. both are wildly expensive, and one of them is renowned for its shady business practices and lack of care for the animals brought there.

in one case, apparently, an owner brought a yorkie in for an emergency c-section; supposedly all the puppies died but somehow some of the techs wound up with yorkie puppies. in another, a kennel owner brought a boarded dog in who was suffering some kind of bloating disorder. the vet not only refused to treat the dog without permission from the owner (who was out of the country and could not be reached) but also refused to release the dog back to the kennel owner! this dog apparently died in excruciating pain in the vet's office.

so all vets around here recommend that you go to the other.

the issue really is money. this expense for the cat, today, is something i've planned for and i'm prepared for, within reason. and in an urgent care situation i can usually swing an extra $150. but i don't have credit or a cash cushion, so the the thought of shelling out $500 or $1000 at an emergency vet -- for a cat who's pushing 17 -- when i have a host of other expenses to pay for, is a hard sell.

my wife believes in the poundage theory. she likes great danes, in part because they're big dogs. when you take the dog to the vet and you have a $300 vet bill, you can amortize the bill across the weight of the dog, so if you have a 100 pound dog, it only costs $3 a pound.

compare that to kiri. i'm looking at a vet bill something akin to $43 a pound.

that's pretty damned expensive for something that doesn't come out from doglady's bedroom unless i go in there and get her.

1 comment:

God, I'm sorry. I don't think your comment ever showed up. I've only ever deleted two comments - one from my husband and one from a woman who emailed later and asked me to delete it for personal reasons. I certainly don't think that anything you wrote here was inflammatory or needed to be deleted for some reason.